Marian Hossa has played alongside so many great players in his NHL career, it can be easy to forget just how good he is himself.

Hossa debuted in 1997 with the Ottawa Senators, where he played with Daniel Alfredsson. After Hossa was traded to Atlanta, he and Ilya Kovalchuk led the Thrashers to the franchise’s only playoff appearance. In Pittsburgh, where Hossa played 12 regular-season games and 20 in the playoffs after a deadline trade, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were the foundation of an Eastern Conference championship team. Then, on a one-year free-agent deal in Detroit, Hossa played with Pavel Datsyuk and Nicklas Lidstrom. And since the summer of 2009, Hossa has been teammates with Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews in Chicago, where he helped the Blackhawks snap a 49-year Stanley Cup drought.

That triumph was particularly special for Hossa after he had been on the losing end in the Stanley Cup Finals the previous two seasons. Hoisting the Cup also relieved some of the pressure of a 12-year, $63.3 million contract.

“It definitely helps to win right away,” Hossa told Sporting News. “It was great. You still have to make sure you’re on top of the game because expectations are high. I expect from myself, lots. I don’t want to let down people in the organization, or my fans or the teammates. You try always to be on top.”

The way to the top for Hossa is paved with goals, and plenty of them. Hossa has scored 401 in his career, trailing only Stan Mikita and Peter Stastny among Slovakia-born players. Ten times in his career, Hossa has scored at least 25 goals—only Jarome Iginla and Teemu Selanne have reached the plateau more times since Hossa’s debut. Twice, Hossa has led the NHL in shorthanded goals, in addition to his always sterling work on the power play and at even strength.

“He’s just natural,” said New York Rangers right wing Marian Gaborik, who has not played with Hossa in the NHL but shares the ice with him for Slovakia’s national team. “He can score, and he’s become a very good player as well defensively over the past few years and won a Cup. He’s one of the fastest guys. His coordination, his feet and his hands, with the puck he’s unbelievable. We’ve trained together in the summer, skate together in my rink. The way he handles the puck is unbelievable. We’re neighbors as well, and he’s a great guy.”

Toews echoed that sentiment, calling Hossa a “great guy to be around.” While there is not a lot that the 23-year-old superstar needs to learn on the ice, there are lessons that he has taken from seeing the way Hossa goes about his job.

“He’s one of those players that, he can go out and dominate if he wants to, but he knows he has to let the game come to him, and he just goes out there and plays, and things will happen eventually,” Toews said. “By the end of the game, you don’t even know it and he has two or three points. I’m one of those guys who tries to attack things a little bit, and go out there and take control. You can take away from his relaxed, easygoing attitude that sometimes you’ve just got to let things happen. He does that, in a great way.”

That may be the secret behind Hossa’s success in fitting in everywhere he has gone, with so many excellent teammates along the way. It also helps the 32-year-old to stay mentally fresh, and this season he is keeping pace with his younger teammates. Hossa’s 32 points (13 goals, 19 assists) have him tied for ninth in the league with Patrick Sharp, two behind Toews and one ahead of Kane.

“Definitely, we’ve got a team with lots of talented players—a couple of superstars,” Hossa said. “The whole package. I am grateful to be in this organization and be having fun when I’m on the ice, or just watching on the bench, for these young players to dangle or do the little tricks. It’s just fun to be part of it.”

It is significantly less fun for the team in the Central Division that Hossa left behind. Hossa scored 40 goals in 74 games in his one season with the Red Wings, then added six more in the playoffs as Detroit came within one win of capturing the Stanley Cup.

“He was fantastic,” said Red Wings senior vice president and Hall of Famer Jim Devellano. “We were so sorry to lose him. It was just a cap problem, a hard cap problem, and we just couldn’t pay him what he deserved. … He was a heck of a player and a heck of a person, and we would have loved to keep him. … It was just a case that we simply couldn’t pay him what he was worth, and our loss was Chicago’s gain. If we had Marian Hossa today, we’d run away with the Central Division.”

Instead, one of hockey’s longest-standing rivalries is all the more intense, with Hossa’s old team and his current one battling for supremacy in the Central. It figures to be the same when NHL realignment keeps the Red Wings and Blackhawks together. Detroit’s loss was not only Chicago’s gain, but the NHL’s as well.

“Not many players get the choice or the opportunity to choose their free agency market,” Hossa said. “I had that two times, and the one time I knew it was going to be short-term in Detroit because of the number of players they needed to sign. The second time, I knew I wanted to sign long-term, and be somewhere for the rest of my career. Chicago was a perfect spot. We won the Cup, and we’ve got a great team with great players, so I’m happy where I am.”